


late nights, not you

by plinys



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 17:45:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14477910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: “Are we really this damaged?”“I certainly hope so.”(Or, five times Sara went to John when she wanted to be with Ava.)





	late nights, not you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whiteknightswan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteknightswan/gifts).



> Zoe is literally the only one that wants this. But since we decided post-finale that AvaLance aren't back together, and that John is on the Waverider now, I kind of had to write this.
> 
> (Not beta'd.)

1

“Are we really this damaged?”

“I certainly hope so.”

  
  
  


2

John’s looking at her with those  _ eyes  _ and she’s a little drunk, but she knows exactly what that look means. It’s been on her own face more than enough times to count. Which is probably why she grins back at him, a little too easy, a little too free, before stretching just such that her top comes up revealing the flat plains of her stomach.

If there was any doubt, the way his eyes linger on her following the movement puts all of her doubts away.

There was something the came from the thrill of a fight, that left a fire in her veins. One that there was only one way to get rid of, and with John looking at her like that, she knew that she wasn’t the only one feeling that way.

“You planning on sticking around?”

“I’m not sure yet, love,” John says, drawing out his words. Though he’s make no effort to move away, no effort to look away. 

They’d have to have  _ that  _ discussion properly in the morning. About what exactly  _ time demons  _ meant for the Legends, and for John. Sara was pretty much certain that the rest of the team would agree with offering John a place among their ranks, the chance to fill the room that’s been open since Amaya’s exit from the team. 

But for now…

She doesn’t want John in another room.

She wants him in hers. 

So she asks a different question, one with clear intentions in her tone, “You planning on staying the night?”

John doesn’t miss the implication. In fact, he seems more than willing to take her up on the offer, this time moving to step closer to her. Taking the bottle out from her fingers and setting it down on the desk behind her. 

She can feel the tension between them, the inevitable, so she’s a little surprised when he hesitates for just a moment to ask, “Aren’t you with Little Miss Director?”

“Not last I checked,” Sara says. 

It’s a technicality.

Technically they’re not.

Technically they were on a break.

Technically they hadn’t exactly talked about it.

Technically they were both working through personal issues.

Technically Ava hadn’t said  _ I love you  _ back.

Technically Sara -

“Fuck me, John, before I find someone else to.” 

  
  
  


3

She’s not certain what exactly she expected, but this is not it. 

It was like they had gone back to square one.

Maybe even further than that.

Which was absurd because Ava had just said  _ some time to figure things out _ , not that they were going back to being on opposite sides of every argument. Not Ava sitting there in her perfect little Time Bureau pantsuit looking at Sara with nothing but disapproval from the other side of her fancy Director desk. 

What Sara wouldn’t give to bend her over that desk and settle this argument with their bodies rather than their words. But they were taking a break, an incredibly frustrating one, so that wasn’t even an option.

Instead, all she could do was stand here and listen to Ava listing off the Legends  _ crimes  _ against time. 

“Perhaps if your  _ team  _ had any concerns for the protection of time-”

“God, will you come off it,” Sara snaps. “We both know this isn’t about my team.”

Ava doesn’t react openly. Doesn’t let the whole pretense drop like Sara had hoped that she would. Though Sara can notice the little things. The way she sits just a little bit straighter, the way her eyes go hard as they watch Sara more closely now.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ava says, voice stiff. 

She’s never been good at lying. No matter how hard she seems to try. Sara has always been able to see right through her. 

“You’re really going to sit there and pretend that this isn’t about  _ us _ ?”

Ava looks away from her. Enough of an answer. And when she speaks it is without the  _ fire  _ that had lingered in her voice throughout this whole conversation, “Don’t you have some demon to be hunting?”

It’s a dismissal clear as day.

One that a part of Sara wants to fight.

But she knows, that there’s no reasoning with Ava when she is like this. Instead she turns away, glances over her shoulder, back where a  _ her team  _ is waiting for her. Well, Ray and John, and  _ Gary  _ who somehow Sara manages to be seeing more of lately than she had when she and Ava were on good terms. 

“Yeah, I guess I do,” Sara says.

She glances back at Ava just for a quick second, to catch a look like disappointment there, but Sara doesn’t have time to play the game where she tries to figure out what words Ava wants to hear. 

Not this time. 

So she leaves. 

And if upon exiting Ava’s office she presses a bit too closely to John while still in full view of Ava’s office windows, well that’s nobody’s business but her own.

  
  
  


4

It was an oversight on her part.

One that Sara blames entirely on the  _ assistance  _ they had received from the Time Bureau.

It had already been bad enough facing a demonic cult that was worshipping a woman very recently escaped from Time Bureau prison, even worse when Ray had been trying to insist that they weren’t allowed to hurt her. But add  _ Director  _ Sharpe showing up with a flurry of blue suited agents of hers willing to risk letting a demon lose in order to get a fugitive back. 

No wonder the mission had gone poorly. 

Getting trapped here, waiting for the team to figure out where they were and get them out of here, well… Honestly, it could be worse.

Then again, after dying three times her standards for  _ could be worse  _ were pretty low.

At least, she wasn’t alone. 

She glances across the small space. Sitting down as they are, her foot bumps against his thigh with each movement that she makes. A tricky position, before if she moves too much she’ll cause the injury that’s colored the side of her suit a deep red to worsen. She’d only just managed to stop the bleeding, and would need a trip to the medbay the second she got back to the Waverider.

But until then...

As far as people to be trapped with went, John wasn’t the worst of company.

At least, she wasn’t with Ava.

Of course, the last time she had been stuck like  _ this  _ , it had been with Ava, and things had ended a lot more fun. Despite the fact that it had to have been a violation of six different Time Bureau protocols. It had been worth it.

She had been worth it.

At least, back then. 

“We really need to stop doing this.”

“Agreed,” John says.

But he doesn’t make any move to go away.

And neither does she. 

Instead she just moves a little to press her foot pointedly against his thigh. With intent. And when John looks up at her there’s a smirk on his lips but a question in his eyes. 

“That doesn’t look like stopping, love.” 

“Oops.”

  
  
  


5

“I’ve had some time to think about it, and I know things between us have been,” the woman on the screen pauses, pointedly looking away, as she trails off, before finally saying the word, “Complicated,” as if it were meant to explain everything.

Sara supposes it a way it does.

The two of them have always been complicated. 

“I want to try starting again,” Ava insists. 

Starting again. 

This was what Sara had wanted.

What she had been waiting for since the moment they defeated Mallus and Ava had insisted that she would see her around. Only now that it was here. Now that it was an offer in front of her. Sara finds herself feeling hesitant about this for the first time in what seems like forever. 

Still, she finds herself asking, “What did you have in mind?”

“Dinner on Friday? Nothing fancy just take out or something,” Ava offers, “And a chance to talk?”

Talk.

Right.

They still needed to do that.

The smile that finds its way onto Sara’s face just seems a little bit too forced, but she hopes that Ava doesn’t notice the way that her eyes don’t match her smile, as she says, “That sounds perfect.” 

They finalize the details. Something that only makes the tight feeling in Sara’s chest worse with each passing moment. She’s supposed to be happy about this. This is supposed to be a good thing. A chance at starting over.

A chance to be back with the woman that she loves.

_ Loved _ .

Once.

Now she’s not so sure. 

When the call ends, at a moment that seems both too soon and not soon enough, there’s only one person that she wants to see. She heads there, straight from her office to his room, not bothering to knock on the door, not bothering to wait for an invitation.

John doesn’t even look startled to see her.

Just stubs his cigarette out in the ashtray beside his bed, and watches her with eyes that seem so much more intimate than the eyes of the woman she had just been talking to. 

The woman that she’s not even certain she wants anymore.

“When did we get this fucked up?”

John sees right through her, sees the words that she’s not saying, as he always does - “That’s the thing about people like us, love, we’re always going to be this way.” 

  
  
  


+1

She tries to tell herself that this is what she’s always wanted.

Perhaps it is.

Perhaps she’s too caught up in her own head.

Perhaps she should let herself be happy with this one good thing she has.

Perhaps she could still be in love.

Because Ava is kissing her. Ava is touching her. Ava is loving her. In ways that Sara has been wanting her too for months. All those frustrations and fights had been forgotten the second Sara had stepped through that door way. 

For a second, it was like they were the women that they had been months ago.

When Sara felt young and in love.

When the only thing that had mattered was Ava and what she felt for her. 

But why then, here in Ava’s bed, with their clothes lost somewhere along the way from where they had been eating take out in Ava’s living room to where they were now, did her touch just feel not quite right?

Why then, when she slipped her eyes shut for just a second, was it someone else that she was imagining instead of the woman so beautiful and willing above her? 

“I love you,” Ava says, pressing a kiss to her collarbone.

And for the first time, Sara finds herself unable to say the words back. 

Instead, she just says, “I know,” and hopes for now that that will be enough. 

Hopes that in the morning, the feeling that she’s been losing, will return. 


End file.
